Mexican Gothic(44)

Dr. Camarillo’s clinic was nearby, so she decided to stop by and hope he didn’t have a patient. She was in luck. The doctor was eating a torta in the reception area. He didn’t have his white coat on; instead he wore a simple, single-breasted tweed jacket. When she stopped in front of him, Julio Camarillo quickly set the torta on a table next to him and wiped his mouth and hands on his handkerchief.

“Out for a walk?” he asked.

“Of a sort,” she said. “Am I interrupting your breakfast?”

“It’s not much of an interruption, seeing as it’s not very tasty. I made it myself and did a bad job. How’s your cousin? Are they finding a specialist for her?”

“I’m afraid her husband doesn’t think she needs any other doctor.

Arthur Cummins is enough for them.”

“Do you think it might help if I talked to him?”

She shook her head. “It might make it worse, to be honest.”

“That’s a pity. And how are you?”

“I’m not sure. I have this rash,” Noemí said, holding up her wrist for him to see.

Dr. Camarillo inspected her wrist carefully. “Odd,” he said. “It almost looks like you came in contact with mala mujer, but that doesn’t grow here. It’s a sure recipe for dermatitis if you touch the leaves. Do you have allergies?”

“No. My mother says it’s almost indecent how healthy I am. She told me when she was a young girl everyone thought it was very fashionable to suffer a bout of appendicitis and girls went on a tapeworm diet.”

“She must have been joking about the tapeworm,” Dr. Camarillo said. “That’s a made-up story.”

“It always did sound quite horrifying. Then I’m allergic to something? A plant or shrub?”

“It could be a number of things. We’ll wash the hand and put on a soothing ointment. Come in,” he said, directing her into his office.

She washed her hands in the little sink in the corner, and Julio applied a zinc paste, bandaged her wrist, and told her she should not scratch the affected area because it would make it worse. He advised her to change the bandage the next day and apply more zinc paste.

“It’ll take a few days for the inflammation to go away,” he said, walking her back toward the entrance, “but you should be fine after a week. Come see me if it doesn’t improve.”

“Thanks,” she said and placed the tiny jar of zinc paste he’d gifted her inside her purse. “I have another question. Do you know what could cause a person to begin sleepwalking again?”

“Again?”

“I sleepwalked when I was very young, but I haven’t done it in ages. But I sleepwalked last night.”

“Yes, it’s more common for children to sleepwalk. Have you been taking any new medication?”

“No. I told you. I’m scandalously healthy.”

“Could be anxiety,” the doctor said, and then he smiled a little.

“I had the oddest dream when I was sleepwalking,” she said. “It didn’t feel like when I was a kid.”

It had also been an extremely morbid dream and then, afterward, the chat with Virgil had not helped soothe her. Noemí frowned.

“I see I’ve failed to be helpful once again.”

“Don’t say that,” she replied quickly.

“Tell you what, if it happens again you come and see me. And you watch that wrist.”

“Sure.”

Noemí stopped at one of the tiny little stores set around the town square. She bought herself a pack of cigarettes. There were no Lotería cards to be had, but she did find a pack of cheap naipes.

Cups, clubs, coins, and swords, to lighten the day. Someone had told her it was possible to read the cards, to tell fortunes, but what Noemí liked to do was play for money with her friends.

The store owner counted her change slowly. He was very old, and his glasses had a crack running down the middle. At the store’s entrance sat a yellow dog drinking from a dirty bowl. Noemí scratched its ears on the way out.

The post office was also in the town square, and she sent a short letter to her father informing him of the current situation at High Place: she’d obtained a second opinion from a doctor who said Catalina needed psychiatric care. She did not write that Virgil was extremely reluctant to let anyone see Catalina, because she did not want to worry her father. She also did not mention anything about her nightmares, nor the sleepwalking episode. Those, along with the rash blooming on her wrist, were unpleasant markers of her journey, but they were superfluous details.

Once these tasks were done, she stood in the middle of the town square glancing at the few businesses there. There was no ice cream shop, no souvenir store selling knickknacks, no bandstand for musicians to play their tunes. A couple of storefronts were boarded up, with For Sale painted on the outside. The church was still impressive, but the rest was really quite sad. A withered world. Had it looked this way in Ruth’s day? Had she even been allowed to visit the town? Or was she kept locked inside High Place?

Noemí headed back to the exact spot where Francis had dropped her off. He arrived a couple of minutes later, while she sat on a wrought-iron bench and was about to light a cigarette.

“You’re quick to fetch me,” she said.